The short pastry and the friable pastas for sweets are achieved by using solid state fats, as butter, margarines or lard. In these products the friability does not come from the action of yeasts, but from the solid fats mixed very quickly with the other ingredients (flour, eggs and sugar), so as to avoid the melting. The so obtained mixture incorporates uniformly fat particles that are still in the solid state and that, during the subsequent cooking, change to the liquid state, with the consequent volumetric reduction. This volume reduction creates so much small empty spaces, that determine the characteristic alveolar typical section of the short pastry.
Document EP-A-0 422 714 concerns an edible fat composition (mainly margarine) wherein the fat phase comprise a homogeneous dispersion of fine crystals and in which the fat phase is essentially free of crystalline aggregates so as spoilage is greatly reduced.
Anhydrous products can be produced by melting the fat, at 58-61.degree. C., cooling to 16.degree. C. the melted fat to a temperature at which partial crystallisation occurs, homogenising the partially crystallised fat, by heating it to 26.5-29.5.degree. C., and cooling to 16-19.degree. C. the homogenised fat to further crystallise the fat at a temperature of 17.5.degree. C.
Moreover this document envisages the use of "high stearic" vegetable oils, but, even in this case, the edible fat composition is obtained with a process always working at a temperature above 16.degree. C. which includes, first of all, heating the product, cooling the melted product, homogenising (heating again) this latter and finally cooling.
The document EP-A-0 285 198 discloses an edible plastic product (mainly margarine) comprising a continuous fat phase and a dispersed gas phase and to a process for the preparation thereof. This product is mainly used for frying.
The preferred products consist essentially of a continuous fat phase, a dispersed aqueous phase and a dispersed gas phase, for example gas-containing margarine.
This document also discloses a process for the preparation of this edible plastified product incorporating gas, that includes helium in the composition that is to constitute the product and subjecting the gas-containing composition to plastifying conditions at super-atmospheric pressure.
Even if the 20-100% of the gas contained in the product is helium and the balance of the gas can suitably be air or, preferably, nitrogen, the process for preparing this product always includes that the composition is plastified trough a scraper-surface heat exchanger, a stirred crystalliser, another scraper-surface heat exchanger and a resting tube. The obtained product is stored at 5.degree. C.
In other words, this process always includes heating the composition before stirring this latter. In any case all the process is conducts at a temperature above 0.degree. C.
The document JP-A-63 133 942 discloses a preparation of a fat and oil compound containing air bubbles by heating this latter to be molten, than chilling and kneading the molten compound by controlling the decreasing rate of temperature within the melting range for the product.
Also this fat and oil compound is obtained by firstly heating the same, and than by chilling this latter at a temperature above the melting range of the product.
The abovementioned edible fat compounds mainly include margarines or emulsion made from such fat and oil and the processes for making thereof firstly include the heating of the compound, normally to relatively high temperatures (50-60.degree. C.) so reducing this latter to its liquid phase.
The abovementioned edible compounds often include preservatives and emulsions so avoiding the spoilage by molds, bacteria and physical changes occuring on storage, but surely introducing into said compounds unhalthy and cancerogenic elements.
The oil usage would be advantageous because there is no ingestion of an high quantity of cholesterol or saturated fats that are injurious to the health, and that are included in the animal fats, in the butter and in the margarines, but neither the liquid oil, nor the normally solidified oil, would have that volume reduction necessary to make the wished porosity.